Bought a $300 star tracker and it saved my entire eclipse trip

Spent $300 on a used iOptron SkyTracker last month. Set it up for the solar eclipse photos, got sharp 30 second exposures without star trails. Friend next to me had blurry shots on his tripod. Anyone else drop cash on gear that paid off in one night?

2 comments

2 Comments

noahward12d ago

Consider how your star tracker also saved you time in post-processing. Without one you're stuck stacking hundreds of frames and fixing drift manually, which takes hours. For me that $300 was really buying back a weekend of tedious editing work.

fionarodriguez12d ago

Man, that's the real value right there. Time is money, and if you hate sitting there fixing drift for hours, that $300 is a steal. Plus you can actually enjoy your night out shooting instead of stressing about alignment.